Only 6 Districts' Budgets Fail in Low Turnout

By FORD FESSENDEN

Published: May 20, 2007

TURNOUT in school budget voting last week was low, and that was probably a good thing for Long Island's school districts. Low turnout, superintendents say, means low levels of tax unrest among voters.

Voters in 95 percent of school districts on the Island approved budgets on Tuesday, matching the statewide rate of 95.5 percent, the highest approval rate in nearly 40 years, according to figures from the State Department of Education. Among 123 districts on Long Island reporting results, only six, including some of the Island's poorest, had officially had their budgets defeated.

Record amounts of state aid helped to keep tax increases to an average of 4.7 percent, about a percentage point below the increases of 2006, and contributed heavily to the high approval rates.

Turnout was low across the suburbs -- just under 17 percent in both Nassau and Suffolk Counties -- and superintendents said it reflected the lack of controversy over the budgets: fewer people were motivated to vote no, and so they did not vote.

About 140,000 voters cast ballots in Suffolk County, compared with 187,000 last year. In Nassau, 142,000 voters cast ballots, down from 172,000 in 2006.

''The 'no' people could just be saying they're doing the right thing and I'm just going to stay home,'' said Charles J. Murphy, the superintendent of the Sachem Central School District. Two years ago, more than 15,000 voters turned out to decisively reject a double-digit tax increase proposed in his district.

Mr. Murphy proposed a slight decrease in the tax levy this year, using state aid and surpluses from previous years to reduce the taxes. The turnout last week was less than 6,000, with 64 percent voting for the budget.

The Sachem district is not poor, but it is not wealthy either, and Mr. Murphy said he drew a further lesson from the voting. ''When you're presenting a no-tax increase budget and still have just an 1,800-vote margin, it seems there still are a lot of people sending the message that they're concerned about high teacher salaries and high administrator salaries and schools that aren't cognizant of the residents' ability to pay,'' he said.

Districts whose budgets failed tended to be among the suburbs' poorest, and the results seemed to indicate that those districts may have reached the limits of their taxpayers' capacity. In the poor districts, only minimal tax increases were tolerated.

''People in districts like ours are being taxed at a much higher level than they can afford,'' said William R. Bolton, the superintendent in Copiague, a small district in Suffolk in which most of the students are minorities. Mr. Bolton used a hefty portion of state aid to reduce the tax levy increase to 1.75 percent.

Voters in Uniondale, which ranks 114th among the Island's 124 districts in average income, handily approved the budget as well, but it called for no tax increase. ''We had to cut three or four million dollars to get there,'' said Kenneth W. Rodgers, the assistant superintendent for business affairs.

But in the Brentwood Union Free School District, where income per student ranks 123rd, a tax increase of 4.4 percent appeared to have lost by one vote, although a recount was scheduled. Superintendent, Michael Cohen, who was appointed in January, called the results discouraging.

''We're a district with 80,000 registered voters, and we only have 2,000 of them turn out,'' Mr. Cohen said Wednesday.

He also said Wednesday that he was retiring, citing comments in a school board race that he thought were code words for racist beliefs.

While most tax levies were lower than in recent years, some districts approved increases that were three or four times greater than the rate of inflation, which has been about 3.2 percent for the last year. Bayport-Blue Point narrowly approved a 15.8 percent increase, 1,281 to 1,221.

In the Plainedge district, parents mounted a campaign to persuade the school board to increase spending by 9.3 percent, and then garnered enough votes to pass it.

''This budget would have been lower, but they came to us,'' said John A. Richman, the superintendent. ''In this community, the psychology is different from just about any other district on Long Island.

Turnout was high by Long Island standards, about 20 percent of voters, but lower than last year, he said, and the budget passed easily.

Districts that parlayed their state money into little or no tax increase did especially well. In the Sewanhaka Central High School District, where the budget last year passed by just 300 votes out of 6,000, voters approved a 1.2 percent tax increase proposal by 1,100 votes on Tuesday.

''It tells us we made the right decision in taking the additional aid and returning it to the taxpayers,'' said Lee Chapman, the interim assistant superintendent for finance. ''They deserve it.''

Photo: VOTING LESSONS DRAWN -- Casting a ballot at a school in Hempstead. (Photo by Phil Marino for The New York Times)